Bring your emotive thoughts and plans and we will back these up with logic that will make a difference to you, your team and your clients.

We form design around the results you wish to achieve and we want your feedback – the performance of our designs needs to be measured so we can keep increasing their value.

We count on you to write an effective brief which includes your previous use of design.
You count on us to come up with design solutions that ‘tick all your boxes’.

Case Studies:

Business Performance diag.

The director of a Welsh Publisher brought us a project idea which included the production of storybooks for children and Little People Books was born.

A chance meeting with a chemical engineer resulted in a co-production with Acuity Design of a raising braille lettering system used in helping blind parents to teach their sighted children to read.

A call to us from a New Zealand author led to the design of a group of dinosaur characters and one soft toy.

A restaurant owner and TV Chef contracted us to design a club membership system and the interior of her second restaurant.

Garden Rooms – with Design model top left.House and Interior Design

The theft of two paintings from a Birmingham Gallery led to the design of a fund-raising art exhibition in a botanical garden.

A marine engineer visited to discuss ways to promote his turbine designs.

Prototype signage for Chinese Acupuncturist (relocated to http://www.peakhousepractice.com )UK South Coast Snail Farm Design within existing polytunnelLabel Design for range of culinary preservesPoster design for Sea Bed Mariculture Unit using imaging by the one and only Tim Griffiths)Bathroom Tiling DesignBook Spread Design

After attending a course on snail farming and escargot cuisine, a farmer asked us to research and design a snail farm to include external enclosures.

Due to gravel extractions, we were brought in to design a fish farm around deep lakes.

For the launch of an internet café in Birmingham, we designed wall displays that incorporated wire made by the same company as produced the first transatlantic phone cable.

A design / Build company commissioned us to re-image the interior and exteriors of a holiday camp’s entertainment complex.

On purchasing a site, a developer contracted us to design the architectural presentation scheme for a Bar, Restaurant and Golf Club House.

For a manufacturer of fittings, we designed a shop conversion and display system for a trade and retail outlet in the Czech Republic.

Given a set of five different building photographs ‘torn from various trade magazines’, we followed a brief to incorporate certain features from each picture to form a totally new building for a major car showroom.

Your thoughts need to be communicated.

Our job is to bring your plans to life so others can see them, share your dreams and follow your lead.

With over 800 projects in our folio, we are counting on you to keep us alive to your design needs. Contact us at the HoBB or if it is easier for you, message @_Grant directly on Twitter.

Thorough Design output.

Your design start with your call to us. It continues as we contribute to your promotion through our social and business networks. Join us. Follow Us. Link with us. Enjoy the adventure with others.

Tids Slippers online shop designFor the logo and covers design that made the Premier League, visit www.dugoutseats.co.ukRolls Royce DealershipDoor and Frame designGarden Feature DesignMatching Pot and Topiary DesignFrom a theme park design for a B.B.C. television show to an interior design for Paulton’s Wine and Coffee Bar, we really enjoy using our design skills to communicate at speed. The TV audience got a four second look at our theme park and Paulton’s got the funding after just a 30 minute bank meeting.We were surprised to get a call from a new shoe company but loved looking through the latest Italian designs and figuring out a range of design options for slippers you put into the washing machine like any other clothing.For a new HQ, we were commissioned to design the reception area in full which included furniture, clock, signage and product display.Two of our shopfront designs here. One for an Italian Pizza Take away, the other for a Chinese Herbalist which led to a contact with a fellow artist so we got together and designed his web site and photographed his first product range.

Creating a en-kissing of trees happens when two branches or trunks rub against each other, grow and fuse. It’s termed inosculation (From the Latin ‘osculare’, to kiss). Like species will en-kiss well. As nearly all hedgerows around the HoBB Gardens are ‘pleatched’ i.e. cut and laid to form a barrier to cattle and sheep, many branches and tree trunks rub together and become fused/en-kissed.

This group of hazel trees (see picture) was saved from the pleatcher’s cut and by holding the stems together they have formed a woven ‘basket’ making a fine silvery feature in winter.

Some plants react favourably to this sort of manipulation and if you are keen to track down some extremes, look up references to the work of Axel Erlandson and his curiously ornamental ‘circus trees’ in America which were sold to Bonfante Gardens in Gilroy, where today “they continue to amaze and thrive.”

‘Man-made’ circus trees, landscapes and gardens are most beautiful when they arise from a deep understanding of Nature. At the HoBB Gardens our land and water stewardship method is to persuade and stimulate Nature rather than overpower and exploit her. The HoBBian circus trees have happened in a more unplanned way as previous farmer-gardeners have put plants to practical use like hedging and boundary marking. Gradually, we are supplementing these past plantings as we enjoy our role as one link in a continuous chain of evolving growth.

“It is Grant’s spirit of approach to design that creates greater beauty where Nature itself grows.”

I’ve been sitting too long today doing a set design project, so tomorrow I’ll get out into the cool 9 degrees C. and work off the extra few grams that are still lingering after a second helping of Christmas pudding before New Year’s Eve.

But before I meet tomorrow’s chill, here’s something a bit chilly from the book “The Development of the Theatre” by Allardyce Nicoll (3rd Edn. Pub. 1948 by George G. Harrap). It is a set design for a production of ‘Macbeth’ in New York and it looks strangely like the front freestanding part of my set design for a production of ‘Farndale Avenue … Macbeth’ at the Crescent Theatre, Birmingham which I’ve included at the base of this blog. It would be kinda spooky if I didn’t realise that ‘originality is merely undetected plagiarism’.